1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a connector, and particularly to a card edge connector incorporating a hot plug switching mechanism therein.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electronic cards, such as sound cards and graphic cards, are usually used in computer systems for expansion of resources. The electronic cards are connected to microprocessors of the computer systems via various types of card edge connectors.
An electronic card is conventionally not immediately recognized by an operating system of a computer if it is inserted into a card edge connector of the computer while the computer is running, and the computer needs to be rebooted/restarted in order to utilize information stored in the electronic card. The rebooting/restarting procedure is cumbersome, as is known. Thus, hot plug type electronic cards have been developed in recent years, which are recognized by computers without rebooting/restarting the computer so that they can be inserted into the card edge connectors and initialized while the computer is running.
A hot plug type electronic card requires a hot plug switching mechanism to aid in controlling the electronic card-to-computer interface. Conventional hot plug switching mechanisms are separate from the card edge connectors and are disposed on mother circuit boards to which the card edge connectors are mounted. A hot plug switching mechanism occupying a separate space on the mother circuit board is obviously unfavorable from the standpoint of miniaturization.
Therefore, an electrical card edge connector incorporating a hot plug switching mechanism therein to save space on a mother circuit board is desired.